Dear Friend of the Cathedral,
 
What a joy it was to be back in the church building last Sunday. However, the on-line Forum meeting on Tuesday made me realise the things I like about zoom – the chance to see each other’s faces, the animals and children who suddenly appear on our screens and the feeling of being a resilient community. We are sad that not everyone can be with us in church in person, or see each other when the service is broadcast on YouTube, and so the 8 am service is being shared on zoom. Starting on February 21, you will not have to show your vaccine passport at in person events.
 
Ash Wednesday is on March 2. Services will be offered at 12:15 and 7:30 p.m. Nick, Deborah and Bertrand are busy planning for Lent, Holy Week and Easter, navigating their way through the complications of hybrid attendance. We’ll know more soon, so watch this space!

What we do know so far is that Ben Crosby will lead an on-line group (in English) studying the Nicene Creed on Wednesday evenings at 7:00 p.m.; it will be four sessions, starting March 9^th. 
 
Deborah is working on a Lent series called Incarnate! to be offered on Sunday mornings at 11:45, in which four speakers will explore the question “What does it mean that we are embodied people?”

Deborah writes,  “We are coming out of a two-year period in which our embodiment has raised profound questions. Our bodies have been revealed as a source of acute vulnerability. Some of us have lived primarily online, in ways which might suggest our bodies don’t matter much, while we have sheltered ourselves from possible danger carried by other bodies. Others have had to risk their health working on the front lines of the pandemic. We have also been made keenly aware of the ways societal injustices impact the level of danger in which our bodies are placed. This series will explore the gifts, perils, and imperatives of our incarnate lives.”  Speakers will include a priest/doula; a dancer; a hospice chaplain; and a theologian. 
 
Nick and the musicians are preparing the music for Holy Week and Easter services. Discussions are also going on about how we will celebrate Shrove Tuesday this year. There will be baptisms, confirmations and receptions into the Anglican Church during the Easter Vigil. If you want to be baptized, confirmed or received please contact deborah.meister@montrealcathedral.ca  The clergy would need to know about any potential confirmations or receptions no later than February 20^th to arrange a preparation course.  If you are considering an Easter baptism, please let us know by March 26^th.
 

Reminders of some important events
 

• Ben Crosby will be ordained a priest in the Diocese of Massachusetts on Saturday, February 26 at 10 am. The service will be live-streamed on St Paul’s Parish Malden’s YouTube channel and we are all invited to attend.

 

• There will be a very special online service, the Annual Diocesan Black Heritage Celebration, this Saturday, February 19, at 11 am, honouring black heritage in our community by celebrating the ways Black Canadians enrich our daily lives. This is the zoom link https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82593015400?pwd=NU9EQjJBbFRCaUh3bytUdSt6SFVjUT09
  Passcode: 1857 .                                                                                     You will find more information on the Diocesan web site under latest news.

 

• The Canadian Centre for Ecumenism is hosting a free webinar on February 27, starting at 2:30 pm called The Itinerants Speak to Us. The event is designed to “give a voice to the voiceless, a place to those left behind, in order that it might bring together all existing and potential forces, with the aim of contributing to the eradication of the scourge of homelessness.”  The programme will include testimonies from three people who have the courage to share their experience of living on the street; a round table with speakers from six different faith communities; and much more. One of the participants in the round table, which starts at 4pm, is our Dean, Bertrand Olivier. The movie Recyclage will be shown at 5pm followed by a discussion with the director. You can read about this event, and sign up to participate, here .

 
 

Regular events in the Cathedral Calendar
(The zoom links are found at https://www.montrealcathedral.ca/events-calendar/ )
 
Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at 12:15, in-person Eucharist in the Cathedral
Monday, 9:15 am, Morning Prayer and chat
Monday, 12 pm, Brown Bag Bible Study (Feb 22 will look at Isaiah 61: 1-4, Luke 4: 1-30; 5:1-11, 2Timothy 2:1-9 and, if you have the book, McLaren chapter 20)
Mardi, 19h00, Prière du soir avec discussion biblique
Friday, February 18 & March 4, Travel Talk
Sunday, February 20 10:10, Pain, Partage, et Prière
Wednesday, March 1, 6 pm, Christian Meditation

 Annual General Vestry 
 
This Sunday, after the 10:30 service there will be a very short vestry meeting postponing the Annual Vestry to Wednesday, March 23 in the evening, over zoom. The Vestry reports in English and in French will be available to read online in March – this is to reduce our use of paper. If you need a print copy please contact ann.elbourne@montrealcathedral.ca
 

Beyond the Cathedral – some suggestions
 

• On February 11 the Canadian Council of Churches sent out a letter reflecting on the disturbances caused by truckers and their right-wing supporters. It starts “When tensions grow, positions harden, and hearts grow cold, we call for Canadians to pause, step back, and reflect.”  And it finishes, "Listening is more than hearing. When we hear the voice of God, may we listen and follow. When we hear the voice of those whose experience is different than our own, may we be receptive and together discern the path ahead for the good of everyone. 

                        Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.”
 

• There will be a Healing of Memories workshop on the 19^th and 20^th of March, organised by the Centre de services de justice réparatrice. It is being given in French. From their website: Inscrivez-vous sans tarder au nouvel atelier virtuel Guérison des mémoires des 19 et 20 mars Un temps réparateur pour prendre soin de soi et être plus libre dans nos relations aux autres! L’atelier se tiendra sur Zoom, le samedi 19 mars, de 14h à 16h, et le dimanche 20 mars, de 13h à 18h. Il est nécessaire de participer aux deux sessions. Le nombre de participants est limité à 12 personnes. Faites vite! You can sign up here.

Amnesty International Canada, whose cries for justice are supported by the Cathedral, has two suggestions for Black History Month. 1) Join Amnesty International Canada's Secretary General  Ketty Nivyabandi for an exciting conversation with three prominent Black Canadian human rights leaders on Wednesday, February 23^rd, at 7 pm. Register here to get the zoom link.  2) Take a look at AIC Book Club's Black History Month resource guide! The Book Club is celebrating Black Canadian authors whose powerful works give insights into the histories, struggles and triumphs of Black communities in Canada.   
 
In addition, you might enjoy watching this CBC item - Activist and poet Keosha Love on being Black in Canada.

 

You might also enjoy The Great Black North, a collection of contemporary African Canadian poetry.
 
Langston Hughes was a great black American poet who grew up in Harlem. In one poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers, he writes 
 
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
 
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
 
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
 
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
 
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
 

 

To finish this week’s letter, I can’t resist adding another poem with its echoes of Spring and questions about the identity of God
 
God 
by Langston Hughes
 
I am God—
Without one friend,
Alone in my purity
World without end.
 
Below me young lovers
Tread the sweet ground—
But I am God—
I cannot come down.
 
Spring!
Life is love!
Love is life only!
Better to be human
Than God—and lonely.
 
 
Ann Elbourne, with thanks to Deborah Meister and Marie-Claire Fournier
February 18, 2022